Friday, February 01, 2008

"It sure would be nice to think that the base of the dwindling GOP is not as batshit insane as the nutters at the NRO, Red State, etc., but I have not seen much evidence of it. The thing that needs to be said, over and over, though, is that Rush Limbaugh and those guys simply aren’t conservatives. They just aren’t. Radically restructuring government to create an unaccountable executive is not conservative. Building a security apparatus that is designed to spy on citizens is not a conservative principle. Runaway spending and bloated budgets are not conservative ideas. Torture and permanent aggressive wars are not conservative principles. Fearmongering and keeping the electorate scared is not a conservative principle. And on and on.

The fact of the matter is the self-styled loud-mouth conservatives just aren’t very conservative."

Thursday, January 31, 2008

"Ryan Frederick was arraigned today. He was charged with first-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and . . . simple possession of marijuana.

That's right. Though police still haven't told us how much marijuana they found, it wasn't enough to charge Frederick with anything more than a misdemeanor. For a misdemeanor, they broke down his door, a cop is dead, and a 28-year-old guy's life is ruined. Looks like the informant mistook Frederick's gardening hobby for an elaborate marijuana growing operation, and those Japanese maple trees for marijuana plants.

[Picture of a young Japanese maple leaf]

...A bad informant and bad police procedures then converge, resulting in police breaking down his door while he's sleeping. He fires a gun to defend himself, unwittingly kills a cop, and now faces murder charges.

...these raids need to stop.

You wonder how large the pile of bodies will need to grow before the cops stop breaking down doors and invading homes to enforce consensual crimes."

"In his State of the Union address last night, Bush boasted, “We are grateful that there has not been another attack on our soil since 9/11.”

Except, of course, that’s wrong. I’m not trying to play a cute semantics game; I know what conservatives mean when they talk about “terrorist attacks.” They’re describing devastating, cataclysmic events that kill a lot of people at once. I get it.

But about a month after 9/11, someone sent weaponized anthrax to two Democratic senators and several news outlets. Five Americans were killed and 17 more suffered serious illnesses. For reasons that I’ve never been able to explain, the incident — it’s entirely reasonable to call it an “attack” — is hardly ever mentioned. No one knows where the anthrax came from, who sent it, or why. It was a horrifying incident, immediately on the heels of another horrifying incident, but more than six years later, it’s almost as if the episode never happened.

...Every time I hear someone talk about the absence of 9/11 attacks, I twitch, wondering why the anthrax incident has somehow been downgraded in the national memory."

Flight attendant: Once again, please remain seated until the captain does turn off the 'Fasten seatbelt' sign... That includes all passengers in row nine... That includes all passengers wearing a blue polo... Yes, thank you, and have a great day.

--JFK

Pilot: Welcome to JetBlue flight 703 to San Juan... I'm from South Carolina. We do something special there -- we let our kids drive at the age of fifteen. I've got a 15-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter, so if you're thinking of driving to Florida, do me a favor and fly JetBlue -- it's safer than driving through South Carolina, and my car insurance for my daughter last year was 15 hundred dollars, and now I have to add my son, so I really need this job to afford it.

--JFK

Overheard by: alan b hutscar

Flight attendant: ... And if you do require anything during this flight, simply press the button located above your head. Do not approach the galley, as it scares the hell out of me and I am not emotionally prepared to handle that today.

--LaGuardia

Overheard by: Sheffler

Flight attendant: ... And be sure that you lock your tray tables and place your seat backs in their least comfortable position for takeoff.

--JFK

Overheard by: Ardbeg78

Pilot: Well, folks, I'm sorry about the delay, but, uh, airplanes are complicated machines, you know? And sometimes they break.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

"We've been told we have to trade off security and privacy so often -- in debates on security versus privacy, writing contests, polls, reasoned essays and political rhetoric -- that most of us don't even question the fundamental dichotomy.

But it's a false one.

Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don't have to accept less of one to get more of the other. Think of a door lock, a burglar alarm and a tall fence. Think of guns, anti-counterfeiting measures on currency and that dumb liquid ban at airports. Security affects privacy only when it's based on identity, and there are limitations to that sort of approach.

Since 9/11, two -- or maybe three -- things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back and -- possibly -- sky marshals. Everything else -- all the security measures that affect privacy -- is just security theater and a waste of effort.

By the same token, many of the anti-privacy "security" measures we're seeing -- national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, massive data mining and so on -- do little to improve, and in some cases harm, security. And government claims of their success are either wrong, or against fake threats.

Female student #1: I dunno -- maybe I should give up drinking.Female student #2: That's never a good idea.Female student #1: It's just that I'm older, y'know? The drinking scene is so played...Male student, joining them minutes later: So, what are you guys doing this weekend?Female student #1: Getting fucking hammered.Female student #2: What happened to giving up drinking?Female student #1: Oh, please, that was so two minutes ago.

"The Canadian National Post looks on with mild horror as American linguists report on the growing trend in the American south to use 'Canadian' as a masking euphemism for black people, so that white racists can say socially inappropriate things without tipping listeners off about the cancer in their souls."